Race for Champions League - 2023/2024

[Mantis]

26 minutes ago, Tayls said:

I agree with everything you have said. It is very much a missed opportunity though, in my view it is was very ‘Aston Villa’ of us to lose today, instead of taking advantage and going third, can you imagine how crazy it would be for us to be in that position after 11 games? I think that is the cause of much frustration this evening - we just couldn’t go that extra step and win again to put is in a commanding position. 

Losing today was akin to losing to Man Utd or Arsenal in my opinion, almost like we were expecting to lose because winning would be too wild for us. 

I agree that our inability to go the extra step could well be our downfall but to be fair I don't think losing a game that would have put us in a great position to take advantage is some sort of "typical Villa" thing though. I think it's a typical thing that applies to most clubs in the sort of position we are.

[Hank Scorpio]

Keep losing away like this and we won't make 5th place. Need to draw as a minimum.

[danceoftheshamen]

No chance of top 4. Our away form is too poor for it sadly,

[villa89]

1 minute ago, danceoftheshamen said:

No chance of top 4. Our away form is too poor for it sadly,

It's our squad that's the problem. We basically have a first eleven and nothing else. There's nothing on the bench we we need to change things. Traore, bailey, tielemans, Duran...none of them really pressing to get into the first team. 

[maqroll]

We'd be in third place had we won today. Such a horrible blown opportunity.

[Pongo Waring]

We're 2 points behind Arsenal and Liverpool after 11 games. Most of you wont of predicted that at the start of the season
Away games to Forest, Liverpool, Wolves and Newcastle are going to be tough away games for most teams this season. 
We aren't the Invincibles, we aren't going to win every game. Its not going to be easy. Its going to be a hard fight for the top 5 Champions League places.

It wasn't only a bad weekend for Villa. Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton, West ham all failed to win.
If it makes you feel any better, Real Madrid just drew 0-0 to Real Valladolid at home today. 

 

[VillaChris]

4 hours ago, Villatillidie95 said:

Ogbene for Luton said it in the post match interview, "if you can't win it, don't lose it, and thats what we did". That is they key to finishing in the upper echelons of the table, you have to get something out of games even when you are subpar. We will get there but at the moment its clear away from home there is a marked difference in performance levels and confidence for whatever reason. Its still in our hands and we have a large portion of the season left but its essential to get draws sometimes. At villa we are a binary team, its often a loss or a win, nothing in between

Wolves was a game we got a draw when we were subpar.

I'd say we were subpar home to Palace (second half) and Chelsea away was a containment job until the sending off so that's the thing we don't need to be 100% to win games in the prem this season home or away so to me the games in previous season we'd have drawn 1-1 we're now tending to win.

We can't just win them all. Today was a bad day at the office but it's just one day and we know we're very very good at VP so until home form declines we should trust the team and manager. They haven't let us down very much at all in 2023 after all.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

It's our squad that's the problem. We basically have a first eleven and nothing else. There's nothing on the bench we we need to change things. Traore, bailey, tielemans, Duran...none of them really pressing to get into the first team. 

Bailey should've started today imo. People will moan he wasted this header or that shot but we were 2 down so had to take things quickly. He's done enough over the last month as a sub to be starting prem matches.

Same for Tielemans who after a slow start has looked decent lately. Again you're talking about a guy who's started over a 100 prem games for Leicester since 2019 and many of them were when they were finishing 5th.

Of course we want to keep consistency but I'm actually surprised Emery hasn't rotated the line up a little more for prem games. With Kamara and Luiz both on 4 yellows now we'll be seeing changes to our midfield in the near future at least so surprised we're not already giving Tielemans starts.

Duran in first two months had a really good goals to games ratio so he was coming on nicely but for whatever reason that progress has halted in last six weeks. If he's injured or on a naughty step then we need to seriously look in January for another CF as we can't play a potential 60 game season with just one serious out and out CF.

Edited November 5, 2023 by VillaChris

[Captain_Townsend]

When the media focus comes on the club we wilt. It was the same in the lockdown season. We were flying and then when we started to be noticed we fell away.

Something a bit similar about the MON years too. Yes he ran the squad into the ground but we used to respond badly to media spotlight.

It was a bit similar in 98-99. We got injuries, the pressure came on and we fell from top in January to 6th by May.

There is something in it.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Captain_Townsend

[Kiwivillan]

2 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

When the media focus comes on the club we wilt. It was the same in the lockdown season. We were flying and then when we started to be noticed we fell away.

Based on one away loss against a team that's not actually that terrible. Give me a break

[ozvillafan]

58 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Based on one away loss against a team that's not actually that terrible. Give me a break

Even you couldn't deny there was something very "Villa-like" in our inability to take this opportunity when presented to us.

[fightoffyour]

10 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

Beat Fulham and it's all forgotten.

Beat Fulham and Arsenal or City now and it will be forgotten.

[useless]

Top four most likely not going to happen, and not just because of yesterday's result, we're too susceptible to games like that in general, that is games where we're expected to win, or there's a lot of confidence beforehand, but then when it comes to it we under perform, as if on some level we underestimate the opposition, more often than not it happens in the cups, but it has become a theme, even just looking at the league, one point from Forest and Wolves, probably not good enough if people think we should be challenging for top four either, and then there's our away form, it isn't great, away from home we're only one win better off than Burnley and Luton, Everton are above us in the away table, away from home in the league, we've scored just six goals, and three of those came against Burnley.

All that looks a negative outlook, but I wasn't expecting us to challenge for top four to begin with, even after good start my expectation wasn't for us to finish top four, as it's so hard to maintain the form we've shown over a season proper, especially towards the end when the pressure becomes a factor, last season after eleven games Chelsea had one less point than we have now, in Dean Smith's penultimate season after eleven games we had nineteen points but we didn't even finish top half, point being can't get too carried away at this stage.

My overall outlook is actually very positive, we're doing incredibly well, we were never on twenty-two points after eleven games even in the Martin O'Neill seasons, and for me a top six or even top seven season would be another good season of progress, if we could add a trophy to that it would be our best season since we finished fourth and won League Cup in 96, and it's well within the realms of possibility that we could actually do it.

If teams around us don't do as well as expected, and we can improve, then maybe we can sneak into the Champions League places, but it's a long-shot, and always has been, there's a danger that people set expectations too high and then become unfairly negative when they're not met, we won't win every game, there will be results like Forest and Wolves, chances and we more likely than not won't get top four, but we can still have una campaña fantástica

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

When the media focus comes on the club we wilt. It was the same in the lockdown season. We were flying and then when we started to be noticed we fell away.

Something a bit similar about the MON years too. Yes he ran the squad into the ground but we used to respond badly to media spotlight.

It was a bit similar in 98-99. We got injuries, the pressure came on and we fell from top in January to 6th by May.

There is something in it.

If we fail to win the next two I’ll agree with you. But not after one game against a team that is known to be very hard to beat at their ground. 
 

Feels like fans were starting to think we could just turn up.

[useless]

All this stuff about media attention or lack of it until recently is in people's imaginations, not sure where people get this idea that Emery doesn't get the credit he deserves, I regulary see him referenced as one of the best managers in football, and we ourselves haven't only just started to get noticed, we've been getting praise as far back as last season, we had a spotlight on us when we were challenging for sixth or seventh place, and Emery got lots of credit for taking us to those relative heights.

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by useless

[Kiwivillan]

3 hours ago, ozvillafan said:

Even you couldn't deny there was something very "Villa-like" in our inability to take this opportunity when presented to us.

I was going to post last night for the first time because of Emery I feel more confident of climbing up the table but didn't want to jinx it. That said I think the media focus and wilting is exaggerated. The players had an off day and Forest were up for it

[Zatman]

47 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

If we fail to win the next two I’ll agree with you. But not after one game against a team that is known to be very hard to beat at their ground. 
 

Feels like fans were starting to think we could just turn up.

Was people predicting 3 and 4 -1 wins im the pre match thread

[Leeroy]

Personally think we need to calm down if we don’t get top 5, our revenue is probably only 8th or 9th in the division, even West Ham bring in more income than us and the Sky 6 turnover at least twice what we do. Until we bring in more money we can’t expect to be finishing above those teams, Newcastle have the same problem. Chris Heck needs to be working really hard on this as this is what will determine how good we are over the next decade or more. 
 

Top 8 for the next 3-5 seasons should be the aim and no getting upset if we finish 7th or 8th (although if we can finish top 5 at least once, fantastic). Consistency and stability is needed given the rubbish of the last 10-12 years. 

[RichW]

I get the disappointment about not getting into the top 3/4 yesterday but it is still early days in regards to the league table. If we were in March and had missed out on the chance to go 3rd then fair enough but we are still only in November. All Villa have to do is just keep pace with the teams that will also be challenging for that 4th/5th spot and that's what Villa are currently doing. With Moreno and Ramsey coming back soon there will be a bit more depth to the squad. 

Think we have been spoilt with the performances at Villa Park this season which has probably raised the expectation that we can just rock up to some of these teams and win, I mean I was quietly confident yesterday pre-match but Villa are gonna have bad games and yesterday was one of them. Kinda reminds me of when Villa went on the unbeaten run last season and the pre-match threads for Brentford and Man Utd away were full of people confident of winning when both were tough away games and it showed.

Hopefully bounce back against Fulham next week who we have a strong home record against though they've recently drawn with Arsenal and Brighton away so won't be easy. December will be a key month for me.

 

[villa89]

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Bailey should've started today imo. People will moan he wasted this header or that shot but we were 2 down so had to take things quickly. He's done enough over the last month as a sub to be starting prem matches.

Same for Tielemans who after a slow start has looked decent lately. Again you're talking about a guy who's started over a 100 prem games for Leicester since 2019 and many of them were when they were finishing 5th.

Bailey was woeful when he came on against forest and has been consistently poor, especially away from home since he joined. Tielemens has been getting pelters on here for his performances in Europe. It's a classic fan reaction, have one bad loss, then assume the players on the bench should come into the first team and that will fix everything. We have a decent first XI and nothing behind that. That's why we won't be in the top four at the end of the season. If we want to improve then we need to improve the quality of the squad. The only position we have a decent backup for is left back. That's it.  

We will continue to have bad performances every now and then and the players in our first eleven will get drained from playing so many minutes. If we finish 6th and win the conference league that will be a successful season. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by villa89